


I Want to be Your Fantasy (Maybe You Could Be Mine)

by Regency



Category: Holby City
Genre: Adrienne McKinnie's A+ parenting, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Bar/Pub, F/F, Flirting, Getting Together, Internalized Biphobia, Meet-Cute, Studly babe Bernie, The mutual thirst is real, Thirst Queen Serena
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:54:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24591871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Regency/pseuds/Regency
Summary: AU. Burgeoning bisexual Serena Campbell walks into a gay club and makes Bernie Wolfe’s year. The reverse is also true.A Jess Appreciation Day gift for my fave!
Relationships: Serena Campbell/Bernie Wolfe
Comments: 13
Kudos: 68
Collections: Jess Appreciation Day





	I Want to be Your Fantasy (Maybe You Could Be Mine)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ktlsyrtis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ktlsyrtis/gifts).



> For my darling friend Jess (@ktlsyrtis) who is my brain twin, who supports me, who deserves the universe, but who I hope will accept this wee fic as a token of my affection. Keep rocking babe!
> 
> Yes, the title comes from a Prince song. You cannot be shocked by this.

_“The [Wolfe] is carnivore incarnate and she’s as cunning as she is ferocious; once she’s had a taste of flesh then nothing else will do.”_

— Adapted from _The Company of Wolves_ by [Angela Carter](https://sententiousandbellicose.tumblr.com/post/176932717205/auchen-the-wolf-is-carnivore-incarnate-and-hes)

* * *

Serena opens and shuts her car door three times before the strange looks she’s attracting compel her to gather her nerve and approach the imposing building.

The Hook & Eye is housed in a restored Victorian terraced house on the quiet end of Holby’s historic district. Twin filigree balconies on an upper level boast quaint stone benches overlooking the street. Masculine patrons in jeans and rumpled suits chat in close quarters with femmes in silk dresses while drinking shimmering spirits and puffing away at cigarettes. Serena feels a fraud for even being here.

Serena’s phone chimes in her coat pocket. Another email, another disappointment from the Board. One more of her carefully laid plans gone up in flames and nobody to comfort her. Serena stiffens her upper lip. _Time to rip the plaster right off._ She can get tonight right at the very least.

She marches up stone steps past statues of Artemis and Aphrodite and presents herself to the wrought iron grate overlaying a lacquered wood-paneled door, topped by a transom window of painted glass. She rings the bell and is permitted entry shortly thereafter. Security cameras, she suspects.

A towering figure in a waistcoat and tie welcomes Serena inside with a serene smile. When they catch her checking their name tag where they’ve listed their name, Joely, and pronouns, they/them, she gets a teasing wink for her flustered reaction. Serena will make sure to remember, for the next time she comes back. She doesn’t forget a friendly face.

Once she’s dropped off her coat and bag at the cloakroom, they direct her to an opulent lounge where yet more people are gathered. (Serena is trying to be better at not presuming about gender.) Some sway in canoodling twosomes, and sometimes moresomes, on the umber and cream Italian marble floor. The sit in clusters at bistro tables in hardback chairs, laughing out loud and sipping cocktails, legs freely entangled underneath. A few laze about on chaise lounges, shooting the breeze while a few more share tender, heated kisses in booths covered in leather and ornate brocade. And then some huddle at the bar in solitary misery that reminds Serena painfully of how she already feels. Those she’ll avoid. Misery does love company, only that isn’t the company Serena wants.

As if she has the first idea what she wants. That is one of her many problems. She tugs at a few of the more stubborn wrinkles in her bright red blouse. She’s come here straight from work, too keyed up to risk a needless clash with Jason at home. He hadn’t been at all pleased by the sudden change in routine; only her assurance that she’d asked Alan over to join him for the evening and no more deviations were planned for the week ahead had soothed him. The argument wrung her out more thoroughly than any petty power play perpetrated by Guy Self.

She wants to succeed at work and she wants to succeed at home, yet everything and everyone seems determined to intervene to stop her. She expects nothing different from her foray into dating women. Romance isn’t exactly her forte of late, Robbie being her most damning interlude. He’d been cruel to Jason and that sin isn’t hers to forgive though she initially gave it a try. However accustomed to cruelty her nephew might be she won’t have him suffer it in his own home. Her home is his home which means it cannot be Robbie’s. And women, there haven’t been any women to speak of despite a burgeoning desire Serena is just beginning to acknowledge. Her encounter with Jac Naylor doesn’t qualify in her mind; snogging Jac had merely been a catalyst, the switch that flipped on the light for Serena. It’s always been there, muffled by her mother’s tireless edicts about appropriate behavior and Serena’s own concern at what some of her colleagues might say. Or Edward when they were married. Or Elinor now that she’s grown. Serena has spent her adult life in pursuit of power and, failing that, approval. She is grappling mightily with possibility of possessing neither.

_There’s the clincher._

Serena’s eyes catch on a tight bum and a pair of long legs bent over a pool table on the far end of the lounge. Their shot completed, the person attached to said bum and legs stands and saunters round the table to set up their next shot. Lean and athletic, probably strong given the posture. A woman, Serena would say, purely at a guess. A profile fit for a cameo pendant. A blonde mess of hair dying for Serena’s hands. Skin made to be kissed. Serena tears herself away, chastising herself for latching on to a pretty face so quickly. She glances back only once and finds herself the subject of amused scrutiny: one of the woman’s gaming companions has noticed her watching. Swearing, Serena makes a beeline for the bar.

_They’ve got alcohol. Kudos for that at least._

Serena has never actually set foot inside the Hook & Eye before tonight, but she lacks the wherewithal for bashfulness after the day she’s had. _Bloody Guy Self at it again, and with Hanssen’s tacit approval no less. The nerve of them._ Better to focus on them than everything else wrong. Better to give her mind over to what she can fix.

She smiles a tight smile at the pretty bartender, also clad in a tie and waistcoat, and orders her old standby, Shiraz, a large glass, before she kills someone.

Alex whistles softly to the other girls. “ _Hello_ , fresh blood at four o’clock. Look alive, ladies.”

Bernie glances at her friend over the billiards table where her yellow ball just sank smoothly into the corner pocket. “A looker?” Bernie and Alex’s views of what constitutes ‘attractive’ haven’t aligned since they were together. They’ve diverged ever more with the years that have passed since they ended.

“Definitely. Power Gay, me thinks. Look at the trousers. Tailored within an inch of life.” Bernie allows herself a quick peek but only catches the back of the woman as she traverses the club in pursuit of a drink. Bernie likes what she sees very much from here, nonetheless. _A fine form. A good shape_ , Bernie thinks, stealing a pull from Alex’s Guinness. _‘Nice arse,’_ Alex would say, if Bernie were sporting enough to seek her opinion.

“Power Bi, more like,” Keeley opines philosophically, speaking from experience. “She hasn’t the first idea what she’s doing here.”

Bernie agrees. The nervous juddering of her crossed legs after she takes a seat at the bar is a dead giveaway, and Bernie feels an instant kinship. She’s been new in town, so to speak, before.

“Then, I’d better go help the lady out, hadn’t I? That’s the gentlemanly thing to do.” She offers Alex her cue stick. “You can play my part.”

Keeley smirks. “Finally, an opponent I can beat.”

Alex throws a handful of greasy chips at her, clipping Bernie in the process.

“Oi, watch the clothes, you two. And play _nice_!”

“Sod your nice,” grumbles Alex. She’s usually the one charged with keeping Bernie on the not to so straight and narrow. There’s nothing straight or narrow about Bernie’s intentions tonight.

Bernie rolls her sleeves up to her elbows and brushes chip crumbs from her shirt. She wants to make a good impression and she usually hears that her arms are among her best features. And the hands, she’s always been good with them. Surgery has made them all the more deft.

“Here we go,” Keeley intones after a mouthful of her Bloody Mary. “She’s got her eye on this one.”

“Both eyes and both hands, in her mind.”

Her friends aren’t wrong. A woman with a figure like that who’s brave enough to walk into the lion’s den unaccompanied? That’s a woman Bernie is more than eager to get her hands on–ah, meet. _Can’t come on too strong. Wouldn’t do to spook her on the first night, else she might not come back._

Bernie pats her unruly hair, pulls a somewhat helpless face, and leaves well enough alone. She’s hopeless with a mirror and hapless without one. Her natural state will have to do.

Her friends share an amused look as Bernie swaggers toward the bar.

“Twenty quid says she gets her number,” says Alex.

Keeley looks at her, incredulous. “Please. Thirty says she gets her in bed and we don’t see her again till morning. You saw that look.”

Alex did. “You’re on.”

They shake on it, then Keeley commences with the task of trouncing Alex at eight-ball.

Serena finally begins to unwind after her first glass of red wine. She takes her top-up with a much more charming smile this time, and the titian-haired bartender grins at her in welcome. No hard feelings there. Good, she can’t take another enemy today.

Serena is slowing down to enjoy this really rather good grape when she catches sight of a lanky figure approaching from the corner of her eye. She turns to find a sauntering blonde in tailored trousers straddling the bar stool two seats down. Her blonde. Serena about chokes.

The woman lifts her chin to Serena in greeting and signals the bartender for a drink, a glass of Macallan single malt, aged eighteen years. _Expensive tastes._

She appears the soul of comfort, like she fits in the muted, congenial environment of the Hook & Eye as well as she fits into her jeans. Which is to say, very snugly. Serena suppresses the guilty voice telling her not to gaze so openly. Whoever she is, this woman is beautiful and Serena is allowed to look. She’ll remind herself of this till it’s ingrained in her psyche. _There’s nothing to feel embarrassed of in finding this woman attractive, no reason to feel ashamed._

The woman crosses her arms on the bar top revealing bare, well-defined forearms and slim, elegant hands featuring long, tapered fingers and short, clean nails. As a surgeon, Serena can appreciate the obvious strength in such hands, the dexterity they must be capable of in their chosen craft. As a woman coming to grip with certain…wants, Serena can appreciate the more intimate possibilities they offer. She shifts and tries not to think about the ache swirling inside her, or how easily those fingers could soothe it. Serena’s wine takes a detour down her airway and she coughs till it passes.

The blonde raises concerned, questioning eyebrows and Serena sucks in a few necessary breaths, ducking her head apologetically. Is there some set protocol for approaching women in gay establishments? She’s at a loss and the weight of her stranger’s eyes has unglued her usually unassailable wit. _Since when can’t I flirt? I elevate flirtation to an art form. What makes women any different?_ They aren’t, typically. Serena flirts with women as easily as breathing, always has, but never with intent. There are scarcely words for all Serena intends now.

Between careful sips, she permits herself a more detailed examination of the other woman’s profile: dark eyes accenting a long, narrow nose. High, defined cheekbones leading down to thin, pensive lips tipped in a smile directed toward—Serena follows her distant gaze—the bar mirror, and Serena’s reflection therein. _Shit._

It’s the echo of her late mother’s chastising voice that undoes her in the end, sending her eyes skittering guiltily to the polished marble floors that continue throughout this establishment.

 _‘It isn’t ladylike to stare, Rena,’_ her mother would say, all mannerly correction despite her refusal to call Serena by her full name as she prefers. Serena has been making herself small to appease Adrienne’s particularities since she was a girl, only adulthood eventually allowing her to harden herself against the censure that her mother could not seem to help imposing. Even as an adult she’s felt the blows with the difference being that she learned not to show it. Death has scarcely been a defense against a lifetime of Adrienne McKinnie’s pointed nitpicks about her hair, her clothes, her personality, her love life. For all that her mother gloried in Serena’s myriad achievements, there is little of her that hasn’t endured the sting of her mother’s vocal disapproval. _Would she disapprove of me now?_

Serena drinks more to keep from thinking about it. She doesn’t want her mother’s voice in her head tonight; what Serena craves most is company. It’s only in recent weeks that she’s embraced her feelings for women and she’s been dying to find some kind of community to ease the transition. Holby, to her consternation, is decidedly lacking in that and what there is usually isn’t geared toward women of Serena’s maturity, to say the least. Many of the venues she found were too crowded or too loud with clientele that skewed entirely too young for Serena’s sensibilities despite the frequently warm reception she’s received. She isn’t prepared to earn the title of equal opportunity cougar at this juncture. Maybe in a year or two when she’s found her feet. _Maybe never._ It’s a partner she wants, not a pet.

Tonight Serena will settle for someone to talk to who will understand what she’s feeling without wondering what took her so long to name it for what it is.

“Hello, I don’t think I’ve seen you here before.”

While she was navel gazing her blonde stranger in the sinfully snug jeans had moved to the stool beside her. Their shoulders brush and Serena has to take another drink to keep from sputtering something undignified and staring vacantly into her deep brown eyes. Beautiful isn’t the half of it.She has a voice that suits her, low-pitched and gravelly. Serena is soothed by the welcome in it.

“I haven’t been here before. This is my first time.”

“Ah,” the woman says and it’s clear she understands every sense in which Serena means _first time_. “In that case, you’re in luck, because I’ve been lurking round these parts since they hung the shingle out front. I know everything there is to know about the Hook & Eye, in case you have any questions.”

“I suppose that means I should stick close to you.”

“I don’t mind if you don’t.”

“I think I could tolerate your company a couple of hours more.”

“In that case, let’s see about topping you off.” The blonde beckons the bartender to return. “Melba, another refill for my new friend.”

Once refreshed, they toast to the evening and drink in companionable silence.

“I don’t think we’ve been introduced. I’m Bernie Wolfe.”

“Serena.”

“No surname?”

Serena nibbles her lip, indecision weighing on her. Bernie gives her elbow a squeeze, fingertips gentle in the crook of her arm.

“No pressure. But if it gives you peace of mind, we’re very discreet here. Nobody will tell your business if you don’t tell theirs.”

Serena smooths down the hair at the nape of her neck. “It’s Campbell. Serena Campbell. And I would appreciate some discretion. I’ve never done this. I’m not even really what you’d call ‘out’ yet. I wouldn’t lie if asked, but I haven’t told anybody. I suppose you’ll think me overly cautious.” She picks at her nail, noting that all the disinfectant she uses on the ward has started to take its toll on her manicure. “But I have a job that makes it tricky being anything but white, male, and _straight_.” For better or worse Serena ticks two boxes too many in the wrong column.

“Meaning being out is out of the question?”

“I don’t _want_ it to be. It’s complicated.” Holby Hospital is far from a hotbed of intolerance. She’s had out and proud colleagues who’ve got along and got around just fine, but none are ambitious, notoriously ‘difficult’ women in the vein of Serena Campbell. She questions whether she will fare as well. “Maybe it’s just me and I’ve an overdeveloped concern for appearances.” She frets, “Of course it’s me.” She takes a deep breath and forces herself to settle down. She has no idea why she’s telling this woman all of this. _Not as if there’s anybody else for me to tell._

Bernie grazes Serena’s forearm and the fleeting contact is such a shock to the system Serena has to swallow back a welling of emotion. When was the last time anyone reached out to offer Serena solace? That job usually falls to Serena, offering support to the aggrieved, encouragement to the downhearted. As favors go, it’s one that’s rarely repaid in kind.

“What’s brought you here?” asks Bernie again.

“Desperation,” Serena tries on for size, burying the truth in an anxious laugh. When the other woman doesn’t even crack a smile Serena looks to her wine for an answer that will let her save face. “I was looking for…” She coughs softly. “This place seemed nice online, all the reviews.”

Bernie props her head on her hand. “I’m going to make a guess. Tell me if I’m hot or cold.”

Serena shrinks from her. “No, god, not another game. My kingdom for a day without synergistic bonding exercises. I was having a terrible day. I wanted to enjoy the company of women and like-minded individuals without being subjected to a bunch of intrusive, judgmental queries. Is that enough or will I need to submit a blood sample to be permitted to stay?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, we don’t do blood tests; they’re horribly discriminatory. We do, however, test your knowledge of Sappho’s poetry and Virginia Woolf’s letters to Vita Sackville-West, and I’m told the exam is quite arduous on the uninitiated.”

Serena isn’t sure Bernie is telling the truth. If not, her poker face surely impresses. _Jac Naylor would have to search far and wide to find fault with it_.

Bernie’s unreadable expression cracks after a few seconds more of Serena’s speculative silence. “Kidding. I’m _kidding_. There’s no test, it’s the honor system. If you say you belong, you belong.”

“There’s a novel concept, belonging.” Serena traces the rim of her wineglass. “All through my career I’ve had the word ‘lesbian’ hurled at me like a javelin meant to cut me down and now I find myself wondering if they simply saw something in me that I didn’t.”

“They didn’t,” Bernie retorts, sternly, all her subtle humor deserting her. “Take it from me, those petty, jealous people saw you for who you are, not a lesbian, maybe, but someone I imagine is brilliant. Since time immemorial women have been painted with divergent labels to shut us down when we get too powerful and shut us up when we get too loud. First it was misogyny, then homophobia. What will the menfolk think of next?” She’s worked up a head full of steam about it and Serena wonders what poor unfortunate soul told Bernie Wolfe to shut her mouth when she had plenty left to say.

“It isn’t always men,” Serena counters, unsure why it feels like a betrayal to admit it. She’s lost count of the number of times a female peer has called her some variant of man-hating lesbian for daring to tell one of their male colleagues he was wrong. There’s never been a time when it felt less than skewering, not because she considers there to be anything offensive about being a lesbian, but because they think belittling her intellect isn’t enough. For want of any legitimate criticism, they belittle her choice of bed partner instead. They think reducing Serena to a sex object negates her experience and discredits her voice. They think intimating that Serena doesn’t sleep with men is the ultimate insult, as though being intimate with a woman is somehow less. And maybe the roiling unease that’s haunted her is the dawning realization that until recently she didn’t entirely disagree. 

She feels differently now, and that much she’s grateful for.

Bernie makes a commiserating sound. “Can’t say I haven’t been there. Those are the blows that wound most, aren’t they? The ones that come from the people you expected to have your back.” She sips at her drink in brooding contemplation, leading Serena to wonder who’d betray her. “They think if they play nicely with the boys they’ll get ahead and become immune to the same rules that govern all the women they stepped on to advance. They learn eventually, usually the hard way.” She sighs and shakes her head. Her messy dishwater fringe falls into her eyes undeterred by her effort to blow it out of the way. “Like my daughter says, courtesy of her gender studies lecturer, internalized misogyny is a hell of a drug.”

Serena is far too experienced at internalizing ugly social prejudices to start casting aspersions now and Bernie seems to sense it. She pats the back of Serena’s hand and says no more about it.

“They know nothing about you, Serena, believe me. The fact that they hit the broad side of a barn is pure chance. Don’t give them an inch of credit in defining you. They don’t deserve it.”

Serena knows all that. That doesn’t keep the betrayal from stinging.

“You give a good pep talk,” she says in the hopes of changing the subject.

Bernie taps her own skull. “It’s those old upper sixth memories coming to the fore. I memorized all of Patton’s speeches for a presentation once. Some of it must still be banging around up there.”

“Hmm.”

Bernie crosses her arms on the bar. “Now that I’ve got you all softened up, why don’t you tell me what’s put that look in your face?” She forestalls Serena’s excuses with a look. “I know it well, I’ve seen it in the mirror myself. A real answer, please.”

Serena gusts in exasperation. She could be at home right now, taking in a movie in her pajamas and drinking semi-decent wine on her own with Jason off at Alan’s. But no, she chose to socialize with beautiful women. She must be completely mad. “Besides plain old needing a drink after the hell week I’ve had, I suppose I’m here because I’m lonely.”

“You came to the right place to remedy that.”

“Have I? I don’t know the first thing about being with a woman. I did some looking online, but…” Serena raises a shoulder in genuine disquiet. There’s no substitute here for experience and she has none.

“That’s okay. I was serious when I said there isn’t going to be a test. You can’t fail.”

“That’s a shame, there not being any tests, since I think you’ll find I’m a quick study.” Serena excels at academia, she has a mind for it. She excels at people usually, but this is frightening. Being someone new, loving someone new…What if she fails?

Bernie covers Serena’s hand before she can take another sip. “It’s a social club, Serena, not a Sapphic sex jamboree. There’s darts, billiards. We throw a mean karaoke contest when we’ve had enough to drink. I could probably rustle up a poker game for you if you’re in the mood to lose your shirt, metaphorically _and_ literally.”

“Ha.”

“I’m just saying that we do more here than have sex. I blame porn for the misconception that all lesbians and bisexual women do is shag for hours on end. It’s not all orgasms all the time, or even most of the time. We do _this_ , what you and I are doing right now. We talk. We relate to each other. It’s a safe place where we don’t need to justify who we are.” Bernie brushes a hand down Serena’s arm, her touch like sparks to Serena’s skin. “You don’t need to put on a show.”

Serena tuts, lowering her eyes to Bernie’s hand. “And here I thought you were meant to be flirting with me.”

“What makes you think I’m not?” Bernie doesn’t remove her hand.

Serena gulps. “I’ve only ever been with men.”

“And?”

“I know some women who love women find that to be a turn-off.”

“You can say lesbians, if that’s who you mean, and that’s their loss. Your sexual history is your business, I’m only interested in you.”

Serena looks away. “I’ve, um, really always been on my own, without anybody I could rely on, and now I see maybe it’s because I’ve shut myself off to at least half of my possibilities for companionship. I must have if I’m…” She smiles around her inability to put it to words. She’s is fine with it now, she really is, but saying it makes it feel incontrovertible. _Serena Campbell, bisexual._ She isn’t sure she’s ready for that permanence yet. She traces her collarbone, nibbles her bottom lip. “I want a partner, but I suppose I’m afraid that I’ll just be introduced to a new host of lovers who can’t be bothered.”

“I don’t think you have anything to worry about on that score.”

“No?” she asks, tentative and hating herself for doubting.

“No, I don’t think so.” Bernie shoots her a cheering look and bumps her shoulder. “ _You_ are going to be catnip for women of the Sapphic persuasion. You’re beautiful, seemingly successful in your professional life, intelligent, sensitive, and well-mannered. Ms. Campbell, I’d place high odds on you being snatched up by some commitment-minded woman before the night is through.”

Serena is still coming to grips with Bernie calling her beautiful. She cups the bowl of her glass between her hands, pretends it’s the heat of Bernie’s nearness that’s making her warm all whilst knowing she’s being utterly transparent. “Oh, I doubt that.”

“There’s no need to play at modesty. You know you’re a catch.”

“I’m no leggy blonde, but I do all right. I bet you need a bodyguard or two just to get around, looking the way you do.” She allows herself a quick look to see how Bernie took that and finds her smiling.

“Not me,” retorts Bernie, “I’m chronically single.”

“By choice?”

“By circumstance. My job doesn’t leave a lot of room for romance and I’ve yet to find someone more exciting than all the incredible things I get to do out there. It wouldn’t be fair on myself to settle. I’ve done that.” 

“Likewise.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy intimacy, or being close to someone every now and then.”

“One night stands?”

This time Bernie does roll her eyes. “There’s more to being intimate than taking off your clothes. Unless…that’s what you’re looking for.” She scans Serena’s expression. “Is that what you’re looking for?”

Serena tugs at the charm on her necklace. “I feel like I’m at an intake meeting at hospital.”

“If it’s sexual healing you’re in the market for, I _am_ a doctor.” Bernie’s eyes glitter wickedly. Serena wishes they were easier to resist.

“Don’t tell me, you’re a love doctor.” She scoffs, eyes pitched toward the ceiling even as her lips quirk upward of their own volition. Bernie is the sort of woman that makes a woman beware, only Serena doesn’t want to be wary of her. “Don’t tell me that works.”

Bernie holds her hands up. “Just offering. You’re a beautiful woman, I like beautiful women. There are private rooms upstairs.”

“A bit sordid, no?”

“Like you, not everyone is free to be themselves at home. We don’t judge here.” Bernie’s voice is flinty hard as the look in her eye and Serena knows she’s found the one subject on which she oughtn’t push her luck.

“No, of course not. Wouldn’t dream of it.” Serena isn’t the type to be judgmental about sex outside the workplace; she can’t seem to keep her head at all around Bernie.

“I know you wouldn’t try to. Sometimes we judge others by the metric of our unspoken desire, whether we mean to or not. Keep an eye on that before someone gets hurt.” She tosses back her malt whisky to the last, baring a long sinewy neck to Serena’s eyes. The tendons ripple in stark relief to freckled, tanned skin. A band of paler skin stretches from just beneath her collar to the toned expanse of her sternum where a pair of steel circular ID tags jangle between her breasts. Serena’s treated enough soldiers to begin picking out tells and Bernie Wolfe is giving herself away.

“But, really,” Serena prompts her, still staring, “what is it you do? You’re all mysterious and brooding, like a female Heathcliff. I can’t tell when you’re lying.”

Bernie cocks her head with interest. “What makes you think I’m lying at all? I’m the soul of honesty.” The look in her eyes says Serena will never be able to tell. Bernie Wolfe is terrifyingly, thrillingly opaque.

“Can’t be. You’d be too good to be true if you were and I don’t trust it.” However, the pounding of persistent arousal has already had its way with Serena’s good sense. She wants Bernie more than empty promises of veracity.

Bernie strokes callused fingers over the lines of wear crisscrossing Serena’s palm. “Why do you care what I do?”

Serena licks her lips, watching those nimble fingers trace whirls into her sensitive skin. “I’m making conversation. It’s considered the polite thing to do.”

“Are you very polite, Serena Campbell? I couldn’t tell.”

Serena reads the teasing in her tone and clears her throat. Her history of flirting with women has never served her so well. She maintains her composure. “So?”

Bernie presses her lips together. “I’m a doctor, for my sins. A trauma surgeon, to be more specific, and an army major, and I don’t do polite. I prefer honest.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am.” Serena mocks salutes the blonde just to see if she can get a rise out of her.

Bernie honks the most absurdly charming laugh, and any notion of Serena walking away is silently discarded. “Are you going to keep calling me ‘ _ma’am_ ’?”

Serena laps at the wine staining her own lips, and Bernie avidly tracks the progress of her tongue. Serena smirks. “You know, I think I will. If that’s all right with you…ma’am.”

She lets Bernie keep her hand and uses the other to neck her wine. She takes a florid mouthful to steady her. A handsome man’s amorous attention she can withstand easily and give as good as she gets, but a striking woman’s? Her stomach swoops, full of Shiraz and butterflies. This newly acknowledged hunger settles inside her and makes itself at home, slotting securely into place as if it belongs. How did she go without this all her life? Women are spectacular.

Serena Campbell, bisexual? Absolutely.

Bernie slides into Serena’s personal space, her breasts just brushing Serena’s shoulder, and Serena’s gets a chest full of vanilla musk and a plume of whisky-scented breath in her open mouth. She swallows, nervous and so painfully eager it’s impossible to contain.

“Don’t worry.” Bernie vows, “I’ll break you of that habit.”


End file.
